Hikers Struck by Lightning in Florida State Park

Posted on August 20, 2014

As two hikers were traversing the woods at Lake Louisa State Park in central Florida, they encountered a thunderstorm, leaving at least one of them injured from a lightning strike. Lake County firefighters responded to the emergency call around 1:30pm Saturday (8/16), and had to use a brush truck to locate the hikers, a man and a woman, who were in the northern part of the park. Both victims were taken to the the Orlando Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Map of the State Park

WeatherBug’s Total Lightning Network logged the first strikes within a 10 mile radius of the hikers around 12:36pm — by this time, these hikers were already in danger. Our network measures both cloud-to-ground strikes and in-cloud lightning to give WeatherBug users a complete picture of the lightning threat around them. If any lightning is within 10 miles of you, you’re in danger of being struck.

The first lightning strikes of this unfortunate event.

At 1:16pm, two more cloud-to-ground strikes were detected within the park, one very near the hikers’ location – it’s this strike that likely injured the hikers. WeatherBug would’ve given them 40 minutes of warning time! Please download WeatherBugand use the Spark™ feature to know before lightning strikes. Don’t become a statistic!

All lightning that occurred within a 10 mile radius of the hikers’ location between Noon and 2pm. Yellow strikes are cloud-to-ground; Magenta strikes are in-cloud.